With the random nature of Grand Crusader Procs due to RNG (not that reckoning is any different really, besides the fact that Grand Crusader has a % chance to proc every other GCD (CS/HotR) and reckoning has a % chance on blocking to proc) and the fact that having the first priority of the X in the 939 rotation being the interrupt you are talking about (the interrupt almost always being on CD, not to mention being on your normal global and not a seperate one like most interrupts make AS not worth using for interrupts unless there are no other options in my opinion) this leaves the deciding factor to the amount of threat generated by both points, and from what I have seen from Theck's numbers, reckoning is by far more threat than Grand Crusader. So if I am not mistaken I think I will stick with reckoning =]

(assuming adds and interrupts are really the purpose of his point swapping)

I guess you have a point, so the real question is: Is the extra utility worth losing the extra threat of reckoning?

-the utility from AS comes from its interrupt/silence. Interrupt: useful for interrupting big casts/heals but while doing your rotation you can't really rely on that to be up everytime, and at that point having an interrupter (if you have one ready just works out better) with no interrupter I think I would use my threat lead to kinda wait a GCD or 2 and make sure I have AS up before the cast is giong to go off. The interrupt is also useful for the accidental interrupt not only on bosses but trash pulls. Silence: great for positioning casters but with proper CC and/or shielding the correct targets and the pull this can USUALLY be avoided.

-the threat from reckoning. Proc: reckoning procs off of blocking, and we gain block from mastery of which we are stacking right now. so in essence more mastery = more possible uptime for reckoning = more threat (I don't know if reckoning has an internal CD and if it does how long, I'll take a look around and see if it's on here anywhere) To top it all off this threat is possibly not required because tank threat is already high.

so my problem with dropping threat is I run with an over-zealous DW frost DK all the time. His threat is kind of rediculous so I think at this point I'm still going to stick with the extra threat vs the situational utility.

I found these posts from Theck's MATLAB thread (granted these are from july, but I don't think they are too outdated although I might be wrong)

-these posts are still just conserning threat, and has nothing to do with the utility of Grand Crusader"The next big talent is Reckoning, which holds a commanding lead over the rest of the talents in a 9C9 rotation. It gets considerably better in an AoE rotation because the incoming attack rate goes up, but the damage output gained is only against your primary target.""Grand Crusader is almost low enough to fall into the "weak" category. The slew of adjustments and tweaks to other abilities simply made many of them almost as good as AS, and the 939 rotation doesn't have a lot of room for free-styling. The priority simulations show that using GC procs immediately is a DPS loss, and fitting them into the 939 structure is just too limited for this talent to shine."

If there is a post discussing the utility of Grand Crusader I would really like to see it (I couldn't find one) and if there is not we should get one started because that seems like a relatively big deal considering its minor threat contribution.

Well I currently still run a lot of hcs and progression fights in 10 mans. And I have come across several situations where a proc let me pull off an interupt somebody else failed, or where a proc let me pick up adds easier. Though I have had the most use of it doing more aoe tps/dps on trash packs or add packs on boss fights.

For me this is utility enough. You have to make a choice based on your own situation.

Awyndel wrote:Saw Lazeil there dropping 1 point reckoning to get 2/2 grand crusader. For adds and interupts I would asume.

Perhaps an idea to consider.

Yeah, that's a move I've been considering for about a week as well. I'm not raiding again until at least Jan 3rd or so though (holiday/family obligations), so I haven't gotten around to respeccing. Single-target threat is still a joke for the most part, and having GC available more often is pretty convenient. There are several fights where I drop it from my rotation entirely to try and use it as a reactive interrupt. Usually just as a backup, but there have been a few clutch ones that managed to prevent a wipe.

In fact, the shift to WoG-heavy rotations has thrown a wrench into a lot of current theorycraft, which has been based around maintaining 939. Once you assume that you're soaking HP with WoG, a lot of things go out the window. I'm hoping to address this in the near future, once real life activities settle down a bit.

Is it possible that dropping a point in Seals of the Pure is a better option then reckoning because it is less tps per point? Or does SotP proc on AoE things like HotR making it more valuable for AoE threat? (I was under the assumption now that HotR doesn't spread our seal stacks that it only proc'd seal damage on your main target... but this is just an assumption of course and I have not tested it at all.)

Derrickster wrote:Have you taken a look at the spec that I posted yet? and also, would you mind giving me a link to the one you are using? I'd like to see where you put the other point in SotP =]

Yes, but I don't really see much of an advantage over any of the specs in the guide. I'd rather have 2/2 GbtL or 2/2 Grand Crusader than that point in Hallowed Ground in pretty much every situation I can think of.

Armory link in my sig is now updated and should be working as intended. Once I get back to a raid-worthy computer, I'll probably be making the Reckoning->GrCr shift that we were discussing earlier.

I had the point in Hallowed Ground to take the edge off hitting consecrate when it came up in the priority. But I only ever did one test on a target dummy so it's possible that my mana problems weren't a normality.

That's why I had the one point in Hallowed Ground, because I was following the 939 priority of cons>HW but if I switch HW to above it, even if Grand Crusader never procs with the two 15sec CDs of AS and HW I never have to hit cons unless I think I need to (which is almost never). But with how much of a joke threat is there is no harm dropping the very minescule amount of tps by putting cons>HW which frees up that point.

I just ran heroic Grim Batol and Stonecore, two of the harder heroics, without hitting Consecrate at all. I've just taught myself to ignore the button, and I don't miss it. HotR is more AoE threat than we need just by itself.

theckhd wrote:NOTE: This guide is written for 4.0.1, not 4.0.3a. I will slowly be updating this for Cataclysm and level 85.

I was wondering, Theck, exactly how much of this guide is relevant for patch 4.0.3a? I would like to make a suggestion: do what you did for your MATLAB thread. Put a tag before each section not yet updated such as "this section is not yet updated for 4.0.3a".

Funny you should ask, it looks like he's putting in the major revisions right now. To be fair it was mostly still accurate anyway.

Conc>AS>HW is only true for a specific count of mobs that are all identical and being focused equally by your DPS. Prioritizing Judgement low runs you out of mana, as does prioritizing Conc high. AS is vital for getting casters to follow you if you move. HW can stun some enemies. Fact is, right now, in an AOE situation we have a collection of abilities rather than a rotation. Which is awesome, in my opinion.

theckhd wrote:It should all be updated for 4.0.3a now. Let me know if there's anything I missed.

Very nice!

The Glyph section could use a little reevaluation. It undervalues Glyph of Word of Glory, overvalues Glyph of Shield of the Righteous, and your comments on Glyph of Holy Wrath and Glyph of Hammer of Justice still reflect ICC sentiments. The talents all look great, though.

At the risk of having missed a reply about this, I want to discuss Protector of the Innocent for a moment. Everything I have seen mentioned in this thread states that it is of no use to us now that it won't proc from self-heals. I find myself using lots of my WoGs on people other than myself. Even in cases where I am not topped off, I will often be much further from death than another person might, so I heal them instead. For one thing, that is the entire point of mitigation/avoidance making health into EH, I will last longer even with less health. Plus, with PotI I can heal others more and thus be healed myself. I can think of little better to help the group recover from a phase of AoE damage.

I admit that I feel odd in actually considering installing healer add-ons to help me better manage my WoGs for the group. And I don't expect the current tank/healer role to continue forever. I also am not sure where I would move points from to get PotI. But in the end, I do not follow the notion that it is off the table completely.

Edit:I forgot to mention on another topic. I don't use consecration anymore at all. I miss it some times, but I would miss all that mana more. There is nothing it does that I can't do without it, just takes a bit more work.

theothersteve7 wrote:The Glyph section could use a little reevaluation.

Oops. Updated.

PaxDefender wrote:At the risk of having missed a reply about this, I want to discuss Protector of the Innocent for a moment. Everything I have seen mentioned in this thread states that it is of no use to us now that it won't proc from self-heals. I find myself using lots of my WoGs on people other than myself. Even in cases where I am not topped off, I will often be much further from death than another person might, so I heal them instead. For one thing, that is the entire point of mitigation/avoidance making health into EH, I will last longer even with less health. Plus, with PotI I can heal others more and thus be healed myself. I can think of little better to help the group recover from a phase of AoE damage.

I honestly don't think that's reason enough to invest any points in PotI. It's still a crap talent for us. Note that when you heal others:

You don't get the extra 20% bonus from GbtL

Overheal isn't converted to a shield

You're running the risk of "wasting" healing from the actual healers by sniping their targets

On top of that, you need to find the points for it somewhere. Pursuit of Justice could free up two points, but I'd argue that point for point, Rule of Law does more for WoG than PotI does.

I've used WoG to help keep other players in raids a fair number of times, but not enough to make PotI worth taking. For the most part, you're better off dumping that healing on yourself if you're tanking.

Is Raid-Wall completely irrelevant in 5-man dungeons? With the increase difficulty in heroics and the shortage of healer's mana, a 20% damage reduction to even 4 people is still useful on heavy AoE damage fights like Steelbender in BRC and Rajh in Halls of Origin. I agree that it's less than in a 10-man/25-man raid scenario, but it still has to be more useful than 1 point in Hallowed Ground since not only threat is not an issue, but you should not be spamming Consecration anyways.

Completely irrelevant? No. But I can count the number of times I've used it in heroics on one hand. And from the accounts I've been hearing, a lot of players are grinding through heroics spamming Consecration (and either speccing HG, or complaining loudly about the mana cost).

The truth is that there's no one "correct" way to play now. If you like to hit the Consecration button often, then HG can be a decent investment. Can you get the job done just as well without using Cons at all? Sure.

I figure that the players who are likely to be quick enough on their feet to use DG in 5-mans are already sporting a WoG spec. These aren't the type of players who come to this forum to read a Talent guide aimed at entry-level paladins (instead, they're the type that read over the guide and then post nitpicks for the guide author to address ).

The type of player that's likely to read this guide and choose the heroic 5-man spec is dealing with overaggressive DPS and may be running into threat or mana problems due to lack of gear, experience, or both. They may also run into a bad healer here or there, but given one healer and 3 dps per random heroic, the latter will be more common.

It might be good to edit the discussion of the glyph of dazing shield. At the moment, it is rather dismissive. But I recall you writing elsewhere that sometimes you use it to help with CCing mobs and with kiting. Following what you wrote, I adopted the glyph and have been pleased with the results in 5 mans (nice for pvp too). With the importance of CC, it's like being back in Burning Crusade. But now our AS fires without the warning "charging up" period, so the mages etc have less time to get off their CC. The daze gives more time to apply CC before the mobs hit our AOE zone. I think it's worth mentioning, as most of the majors are rather underwhelming imo (except holy wrath, which we have discussed before).

On the minor glyphs, I remember reading an older glyph guide here which said the glyph for seal of wisdom was a smart glyph - as it reduced the mana cost of something that you would want to switch to when you are short of mana. I think the same point might apply to seal of insight: I've on occasion run dry but had to hold off switching seal due to lack of mana. More generally, I've now gone for the three seal minor glyphs. With kings and might being raid wide buffs, the old convenience argument for minor glyphs for them is gone (buffing the raid no longer requires you drink etc). By contrast, I am doing quite a bit of seal switching in both PvE and PvP; and I favor saving mana in combat over saving mana out of combat.